All posts in category Gilmore Girls

It’s not a Gilmore Girls movie but it’s pretty much the next best thing: The CW has picked up an hour-long drama pilot from Gilmore creator Amy Sherman-Palladino and exec producer Dan Palladino. Dubbed the Untitled Wyoming Project, the potential fall ‘10 series is described as a family soap set on a horse farm in a small town in Midwest or Rockies. It’s Gilmore Girls meets Little House on the Prairie! In other pilot pickup news, The CW has also ordered Nikita, a contemporary update of (duh) La Femme Nikita. The logline: Nikita has gone rogue, and a new Nikita is being trained to replace her.

Law & Order: SVU:SVU has booked ex-Gilmore Girls matriarch Kelly Bishop to play a defense attorney representing Brenda Blethyn in an episode to air Dec. 2. Clea Duvall and Mike Farrell also appear in the must-see episode. — Ausiello Files

TV’s most affable amnesiac is back, and she is, I suppose you could say, “forgetter than ever.” But what exactly is new with ABC’s Samantha Who?Melissa McCarthy, who plays Dena, the angel on Sam’s shoulder (to Jennifer Esposito’s gin-swilling devil), shared with us a peek at Season 2’s possible catfights and very special guest stars. Plus: McCarthy hails series lead Christina Applegate as “a tough cookie” who didn’t let breast cancer get the best of her.

TVGuide.com:What is going on with Dena this season?
Melissa McCarthy: I don’t know a lot, but I’m curious to see what happens with Chase, her boyfriend. That’s seems to be getting progressively weirder and funnier to me. Personally, I’m wondering if they’re ever going to let us know what Dena does for a living. Every time I ask a writer, they just laugh. I don’t know what that means! [Laughs] I’ve pitched that she’s a parole officer, just so I could use mace or a Taser.

TVGuide.com: Now that we’ve established Samantha’s amnesiac situation, would you say there is a different theme this season?
McCarthy: Yeah, now that that’s set up, it loosens you up. You can have fun storylines and not worry about people not following it. Everyone knows these people are odd, and you can get away with more. Also, Samantha’s not going to be working at her job anymore, and that opens up a whole new area, as for what she’s going to be doing and whether we go along with her.

TVGuide.com: Will we ever get a meaty throw-down between Dena and Andrea?
McCarthy: Listen, you have no idea how many of those I’ve pitched. I’ve said it could be a little ode to Dynasty, with a fountain that appears out of nowhere. I bring up Tasers about once a show, so maybe we can get into a Taser fight? Have you ever talked to Jennifer Esposito? She’s crazy. She would be up for anything, so I’m hoping we get a full-blown fistfight with punches to the face.

TVGuide.com: It was a riot last season when Dena and Sam’s mother (Jean Smart) did each other’s makeup.
McCarthy: Yes! [Laughs] Jean is so funny. I have a big picture of her and I in that full glamour makeup, and we both look like drag queens. Scary!

TVGuide.com: The show has lots of fun guest-stars coming up – like Mary-Kate Olsen, James Tupper (Men in Trees), and Anthony Anderson (Law & Order). Will you be working with any of them?
McCarthy: I worked with Mary-Kate and she was really sweet. Tony Hale, who plays Sam’s neurologist, I just find him funny even when I’m not supposed to.

TVGuide.com: Did you manage to catch him on Andy Barker, P.I.?
McCarthy: Oh my god, yes. Tony’s so good in everything he does. He’s always perfectly odd enough that you’re just a little uncomfortable.

TVGuide.com: Mary-Kate plays a bad girl that Sam tries to reform?
McCarthy: Yes – and it doesn’t really work out that well! She did a good job with the part.

TVGuide.com: Christina Applegate really soldiered on through her cancer scare, at least on the surface, with nary a blink. Did that keep the mood on the set from ever being sad and more about empowerment and positivity?
McCarthy: Everything Christina does is about positivity. She’s a real workhorse. And really, only a few of us knew and that was it. She didn’t want it to bring down the set or interrupt work. She’s a tough cookie, and she’s doing great. She was smart, she caught it early. In all areas, she did the right thing.

TVGuide.com: You can only hope that a big takeaway from this is the importance of catching it early.
McCarthy: I’ve had quite a few people tell me that they are now going in early for a checkup. When you think about how many people might now get checked early, that’s amazing.

TVGuide.com: Did Gilmore Girls leave you with any burning questions?
McCarthy: I want to know what the last line is! [Series creator] Amy [Sherman-Palladino] knows, though in the back of my head I sometimes think, “Does she really?” But I know she probably does.

TVGuide.com: Lastly, what would people be surprised to know about Melissa McCarthy?McCarthy: That I have, like, 100 wigs.

TVGuide.com: To what end?!
McCarthy: For Groundlings, the improv theater. I wear them on-stage, and they’re all mostly hideous. Bad short perm wigs, some mullets in there. Mostly it’s the 55- to 60-year-old Midwestern woman hairdo. I have a strange amount of those!

Gilmore Girls‘ Rebecca Kirshner is joining 90210 as an executive producer and she will also be writing episodes.

Here are some of the more memorable Gilmore installments Kirshner was responsible for according to Mike Ausiello:* “Hay Bale Maze” (Arguably one of the show’s most touching and unusual scripts.)* “I’d Rather Be in Philadelphia” (Richard is hospitalized.)* “Santa’s Secret Stuff” (Lorelai writes a character recommendation for Luke’s custody case and realizes how important he has been in her and Rory’s life.)* “That’s What You Get. Folks, For Makin’ Whoopee” (Lorelai turns her house into an Asian-themed wonderland to cheer Rory up; Luke and Lorelai have a fight in the town square.)* “Bridesmaids Revisited” (Rory finds out Logan slept with all the bridesmaids in his sister’s wedding party.)* “Always a Godmother, Never a God” (Lorelai and Rory are fighting; Logan takes Rory to NY for an escape.)

Mike Ausiello believes the bigger news about 90210 full season pick-up was the announcement of the new show runner, who has strong Gilmore Girls ties:

“In the final sentence of the bulletin, the network quietly mentions that veteran Gilmore Girls scribe Rebecca Kirshner is joining the series as an executive producer.

And it gets better.

After I did some digging, a 90210 source confirms to me exclusively that Amy Sherman-Palladino’s longtime collaborator will not just be sitting in the show’s writers room, she’ll be running it. (And yes, contrary to speculation, the show does have one of those.) Gabe Sachs and Jeff Judah, meanwhile, will continue to serve as show’s day-to-day showrunners.”

I’ve Seen the Gilmore Girls Season Premiere! Imagine finding a Christmas present under the tree — and knowing it could very well turn out to be a lump of coal. That’s how I felt when a DVD labeled “Gilmore Girls Season 7 Premiere” recently came into my possession nearly a month before its Sept. 27 airdate. As you know, I had read — and loved — Dave Rosenthal’s inaugural script as show-runner. But that was no guarantee that the gold wouldn’t get tarnished, or altogether lost, in translation. So while I was hopeful, I was fearful, too.

Well, I must’ve been a good boy this year because Santa came through. For the most part.

First, the good (and it’s a biggie): The episode looked, sounded and felt like a typical hour of Gilmore Girls. Actually, I would rank it up there with some of the show’s most entertaining episodes. The pacing and tone were what we have come to expect — and love — and, despite all the sturm und drang of the Luke/Lorelai/Christopher triangle, it was funny. Very funny. At times, even hysterical. And there was also a fair share of romance courtesy of Rory, Logan and a two-foot-tall rocket ship (yes, that’s the flying object I’ve been hinting at).

Other highlights (warning: spoilers abound):

* Any scene that ends with Babette explaining to Lorelai how she’d like her “intimates” dried is a winner in my book.

* Paris’s SAT-tutoring business exceeded all of my comedic expectations. When a mother of one of the control freak’s potential pupils asks why they both have to take a preliminary aptitude test, Paris barks, “Basically, I need to know how much of this is her fault and how much of it is yours.” The funniest Paris line is also the one most likely to fly right past you, so pay really close attention. (BTW, I hereby nominate Liza Weil for president. Of anything. Just put her in charge of something. The girl’s a genius.)

* Taylor’s decision to install a red-light camera to catch lawbreakers leads to all sorts of frivolity, not to mention one of the funniest Kirk sight gags ever.

* Although some of you will likely groan at the mere thought of Lorelai and Rory playing a sport, the Girls’ racquetball game/exercise in distraction works precisely because it is so preposterous. And if you had any doubt whether Rosenthal could nail AS-P’s signature prose, consider this line, in which Rory tells Lorelai that there was nothing good about her tearful good-bye to Logan: “It’s a very poorly-named ritual,” she laments. “It was a bad-bye, very bad-bye.” Speaking of Rory and her beau, the aforementioned rocket was a gift from London-bound Logan and is, initially, a source of great angst for his favorite Girl. I don’t want to reveal why, but I will say the symbolic gesture ultimately brings them closer together than ever. (Hint: It all goes back to the episode title, “The Long Morrow.”)

Ironically, the weakest part of the episode was something boss man Rosenthal likely had little control over: Lauren Graham’s emotionally guarded performance. Don’t get me wrong, LG was at her gloriously pithy best. And a summer away in North Carolina shooting Evan Almighty clearly suited her; she looks even more fetching than usual, if that’s possible. But much of the episode called for Lorelai to be distraught over what she had done to Luke (i.e. bedding Christopher), and, unfortunately, LG rarely gives you a sense of that anguish. Lorelai behaves as if she had just broken up with some poor schlub she dated for a few weeks — a Max, for crying out loud — rather than the love of her life. The final, heartbreaking scene should have torn Lorelai’s insides up but instead elicits little more than a frown. The way it plays, she’s not devastated, she pities Luke. Huh?

Perhaps a line change in the episode may shed some light on the show’s direction this season – and, possibly, the increased creative role LG has in this post-Palladino era. In a telephone conversation with Christopher, Lorelai — according to Rosenthal’s original script — told her ex this “will never happen again.” This, of course, being the dirty deed. But on screen, the line was delivered as, “I don’t think it should happen again.”

That’s a big difference. And not a positive one, IMHO. Regardless of where you fall in the Luke vs. Christopher debate, I think we can all agree that it’s extremely out of character for Lorelai to even entertain the idea of falling back into the sack with Christopher mere hours after the original sin was committed. If Lorelai loves Luke the way we were led to believe she does, she would be disgusted with herself and would have instantly rejected such a notion – regardless of where the exes are headed later this season.

But I’m willing to forgive such a glaring inconsistency because the rest of Rosenthal’s Gilmore debut is such a smashing success.

Phew.

There has been a lot of criticism about the Luke and Lorelai situation in the comments sections Here are some of my own thoughts on the matter:

Everyone who has watched the show, knows Lorelai doesn’t get too emotional over the negative in her life except for the uncharacteristic interlude of moodiness last season (that was out character.) She stood Max up at their wedding and there was never a break up scene, it was very much left up in the air; viewers actually had to wait two seasons to see Lorelai and Max discuss it. If Lorelai was a weepy emotional type she never could have left her parents house in the first place at such a young age and make it on her own, she is strong and doesn’t easily fall apart or even feel too guilty, Lauren Graham understands this best, she’s been her for the last 6 years.

As for Christopher he has also been like her Linus’ blanket, she always falls back in bed with him, he is a comfort zone for and she needed him now and lets face we can never be too sure she won’t need him again, that is very consistent with Lorelai’s character. They have a long history, he was a first love that never truly died, 22 years later and she still runs to him. The fans also seem to want to ignore that Luke’s behavior was completely uncharacteristic, he pined for Lorelai for years and he got her he basically threw her away, he should be feeling guilty for his behavior. He was too emotionally connected to Anna last season never really confirming if the kid was his, Anna’s word was law, it was a different kind of cheating. It was a huge betrayal when essentially he chose Anna and April over Lorelai not finding a balance for both in his life.

Shows have ups and downs that what makes them interesting and what makes you want to tune in, there would nothing left to show if Luke and Lorelai lived happily ever after, that’s what series finales are for.